


And It Burns In My Soul, I Will Not Let It Go

by citizenjess (givehimonemore)



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Back to the Learning Hall, Brotherly Love, Loki is Horny for Thor's Magical Prowess, Loki's Fat Feelings, M/M, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Prison Sex, Thor is a Continuing Ed Student, Troy Baker Sings!, gapfiller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 06:34:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15213299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givehimonemore/pseuds/citizenjess
Summary: Loki reflects on the events prior to and following Thor's triumphant return to Asgard's Learning Hall, aka Thor is no longer a high school dropout, and Loki is secretly proud of him for it, ssshh.





	And It Burns In My Soul, I Will Not Let It Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jamestiqueeriuskirk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamestiqueeriuskirk/gifts).



> "Back to the Learning Hall" is easily one of my favorite Avengers Assemble episodes, and I've been trying to find the right tone and whatnot for an homage to it for a while now. Also, my head canon is that Loki wants to jump Thor's bones pretty much every time he shows his adeptness at magic or book learning (and vice-versa, to be certain, I bet Thor is wicked horny watching Loki wield his tiny knives on the battlefield). The title and section headers are all lyrics from Troy Baker's "Aftermath"; I'll make it through his entire discography eventually at this rate, rest assured. I am dedicating this to jamestiqueeriuskirk/thotki in a thinly veiled attempt to convince them to write more Avengers Assemble 'fic themselves. Tempt, tempt. Okay, I'm done.

_Can we turn this thing around?_

The shadow that looms over him is familiar, but Thor confirms his sudden presence before Loki even has to look up to be sure. "Brother!" Thor greets. His face is effervescent, precisely the opposite of how Loki himself feels. "I did not see you at the banquet hall for breakfast and the opening festivities," Thor continues. "Are you all right?" He gestures to the book splayed open across Loki's lap. "Doing some last-minute studying? You're not nervous, are you?"

Loki shrugs a little. In truth, though he is, mentally, the perhaps top contender for this year's Learning Hall Games, it is a position he arrives at alongside many whose physical prowess far outweighs his. It is a humbling notion that, in fact, he would likely be unworthy for the Games at all were the Mind component not the third leg of it. As it is, the fact that he is participating at all is highly contingent on Thor's own enrollment; though again, few anticipate the First (Real, Loki sometimes suspects in particularly low moments) Son of Odin will have any trouble whatsoever not simply passing the Strength trial, but positively dominating it. 

Still, Thor was adamant several times over that his asking Loki to join him and Sif in the testing chamber this day was not out of brotherly obligation, nor because the Warriors Three were already participating within their pre-made trifecta. Sif, in fact, had seemed less than pleased, but kept the peace, seeming to sense that there was more to lose than gain by questioning Thor's sometimes mystifying (even to Loki himself) loyalty to Loki.

He must look more anxious than he wishes to, because Thor does not leave him be. Instead, he hunkers down beside Loki, copying his cross-legged position on the ground. "You are so clever, little brother." Thor's voice is so adamant, and his eyes sparkle with such unwavering admiration, that Loki nearly believes it himself. "I am honored to fight at your side today, in any capacity." He reaches out and grasps Loki's hands in his own, squeezing with large, warm fingers; Thor has always been significantly warmer than him, as though his slenderly muscled golden frame encases the very sun itself. "Ours will be a shared victory this day, and all shall bask in the glory of the Sons of Odin! We will celebrate through the night and all of the next day following, and then take our well-deserved rest!"

Loki does not bother to hide his smile now. There are many things yet to fret about: Whether Sif herself is prepared proper, the order in which each trio of participants will enter the chamber; and yet, it is difficult to remember why he once felt any negative emotions while basking in the glow of Thor's sunny disposition, and so in spite of his usually taciturn nature, Loki leans into Thor's excited embrace and allows himself, too, to fantasize about all that will be in but a matter of time.

 

_Have we ever seen it in a crowd?_

Asgard's prison cells are rather luxurious considering, even bathed in soft light spelled by Odin to feel natural. The decor is, of course, spartan, especially in comparison to the living quarters of a prince, but it accommodates the activities it has been equipped for well enough, and even a few that it has not been, as the brothers Odinson now make an unintentional attempt to prove.

Loki's latest cell - his usual, he notes sardonically, and smirks even more when Thor fails to laugh at his quip - is not well equipped for two people, but at the moment, the close quarters are not much of a hindrance. It's been a while since they've seen each other in person, let alone this closely, not since Thor had, surprisingly, outsmarted Loki and gotten him literally sent to Hel for several months.

In point of fact, Thor's cleverness back during his own short, premature stint in Valhalla had intrigued Loki. He would be lying if he said he thought Thor was actually a brainless dolt, no matter how much he had cajoled his brother during his latent Learning Hall trials to the contrary. As was his modus operandi, he had certainly set up the Games with the intention of breaking free from his underworld prison, which of course mandated that Thor did in fact fail his trial. However, a small part of him held out hope that Thor would, in fact, prove his mettle, that, far from being but a witless oaf with giant muscles in the place of a brain, he would succeed in proving, at long last, that in fact, he wasn't simply a tool forged by brutality on the battlefield, that Odin's folly in pulling Thor from the Hall before he could try his hand at the triad of tests was their father's failure and farsightedness and lack of faith in the son he appeared to put all of his aspirations into alone.

Of course, he couldn't actually say any of this to Thor. The plainfaced authenticity of it was a terrifying prospect, even though, if Loki absolutely had to choose a situation in which to be absolutely honest (for once), Thor would be a sensitive ear, at least. He decides to cling to this even as Thor keys directly into his considerable insecurity about saving face: "I liked your riddles. You must have spent a considerable amount of time and effort putting everything together in preparation of my arrival."

Loki sniffs, though the sound is underscored, slash almost entirely mutilated, nay, by the fact that his brother chooses that precise moment to drill his clumsy fingers into him, well and truly inside of him, back there, with Loki forced to support himself with his hands planted atop the cot in his cell. The result is more of an undignified squawk than the sophisticated sound that he intends, and he decides that he hates Thor for making it be that way, and he'll tell him that, too, just as soon as Thor quits hitting that one spot again and again with his giant fucking fingers.

"I had to ensure that my release from Valhalla was guaranteed. A modicum of effort and adherence to detail was required to do so," Loki brags, when he's able to mostly form words again. Alas, Thor continues the assault on his ass hole. Heroically, he dares to add, "Full disclosure, however, the first riddle was not mine."

"Oh?" Thor replies. Then, he guesses: "Was it one from your own trial, then?"

"Indeed." Again, Loki feels a surge of something akin to pride at his brother's proven intelligence, which is accompanied by a surge of thrice-damned arousal, or maybe that's just due to Thor gripping his cock in one monster hand and toying with it while he continues to fuck into him from behind, now with his own cock instead of the three fingers in there but a moment ago. His breath is hot against Loki's neck, and it's not half as unpleasant as it should be, considering Thor is rutting against him like a giant boar. Even so, Loki throws him a bone: "And in spite of the fact that you, ooh, failed so abysmally at the second one, I suppose you do deserve partial credit," he says magnanimously. 

He can feel Thor smile against his cheek, damn him. "My thanks," he says with cheerful graciousness, and then ruins it by adding, "Maybe the second one just wasn't a very good riddle. What kind of ridiculous being writes a riddle about themselves?" It's a humiliatingly casual, yet accurate assessment of Loki's own intelligence as is, and then Thor has the gall to punctuate it with four, five, six increasingly desperate thrusts inside of him, his voice straining as he tips over the edge, spilling his seed gracelessly like the horny bilgesnipe that he is. It's disgusting, it's humiliating, Loki thinks, almost as much as how thoroughly Thor trounced him during their head-to-head battle for control of Thor's hammer, as though he had been the son to spend his time learning to control his elemental magic abilities at the expense of nearly everything else, rather than Loki all along. 

"Maybe," Loki is forced to say through gritted teeth. 

Unfortunately, Thor is not finished yet; graduating centuries late from school has made him even more hard-headed and annoying than he was already, clearly. "What would you have done had I arrived on Asgard alone?" he queries, his voice no longer plagued by the throes of near-orgasm. The hand on Loki's own cock continues to pump at it languidly. "Or if I had remained only in the banquet hall? What if I had not come to play at all, or had Hulk or Hawkeye attempt the Mind test instead?" 

Loki snorts with as much derision as he can muster. "By all means, I hope you did not truly consider placing the burden of the Mind trial on the Hulk's massive verdant shoulders. Worry not, brother," he adds breezily. "I always have backup plans upon backup plans. Of course," he adds pompously, "you would have no idea how many layers any of my given schemes enfolds."

"Of course," Thor echoes cheerfully. Then, the nerve of him, he begins thumbing the head of Loki's cock aggressively, causing him to see stars. "All the same," he adds, and there's a twist and Loki is spending into his hand, his own hands shaking from the effort of holding himself aloft all this time, "I wonder how much of your ingenuity is simply you altering your 'plans' to suit each moment."

Magnanimously, Loki manages to return to consciousness enough to clap back. "I'm sure you think yourself clever now that the record of your incomplete education has been rectified," he retorts snottily, "but do not presume that this entire ordeal was anything more than a means to an end for me, brother."

Thor, whose gargantuan cock releases its hold on Loki's ass hole with a squelching sound, plants an equally loud, annoying kiss against the side of Loki's face. "What I presume truly, brother, is that adhering to this ages old pretense between us is the only way to unbury the truth surrounding any given situation," he says, his voice far too smug, and if Loki hadn't been tired enough to sag onto the cell mattress, he would never have allowed Thor to get away with speaking to him in such a manner, or holding him with such alarmingly obvious amounts of affection after helping pull his clothing back into place, to be certain. He certainly would not have been so out of his right state of mind as to not only allow, but even swoon a little when Thor punctuates his words with another gentle kiss, this time square upon Loki's mouth. "If that is the reality of the situation" - ugh, his hand should not feel so bracing and wonderful cupping Loki's face, bastard, bastard, bastard! - "if that is the only guaranteed way to get through to you," Thor continues softly, too softly, oh, how Loki hates him, well and truly, "then, as the mortals say, 'I'm game.'"

Helping Thor get through school is definitely his biggest mistake to date, Loki thinks decidedly as he drifts off to sleep.

 

_Like our Mother Mary's face, it whispers to me._

One of the perks of residing in a tower several stories above the rest of the kingdom is almost certainly being able to drown out the sights and sounds of others' silly Asgardian affairs. It is a realization Loki had come to centuries ago, and on this night, as he pulls heavy curtains closed to drown out the merriment below threatening to spill over into the wee hours of the morning and beyond, he is reminded of this perfunctory feature.

Thor is not here. Thor should have been here, or he should have coaxed Loki to join him among the throngs of well-wishers following their triumphant trouncing of the trials together. It is but a small reprieve that he does not hear Thor's booming voice now celebrating without him, but it does not go far towards making Loki's mood any better, alas. Unfortunately, it seems to have been set in place the moment the morning of the Games took their ill-fated turn.

"Where is he?" Sif had asked. They'd already begged off going next three or four times, and the crowd of participants was starting to thin in a noticeable way. The Warriors Three had been through the trials and emerged victorious early on, and many other groups had already followed; some of the students Loki had personally bested in various areas, and it had put his mind somewhat more at ease in anticipating his own potential success.

And yet, Thor had disappeared suddenly, and the fact that he was still nowhere to be seen had been troubling, to say the lea-

"Loki! Sif!"

Thor had jogged over to meet them. "Finally," Loki had sighed, but just before he could let someone know that they were ready at last, Thor had grabbed him by the wrist. "Wha-?" he started, and then he'd startled at the strange expression that was suddenly stretched across his brother's face. Gone was the cheerful confidence of the morning, and in its place was a hesitant sort of ... shame? Embarrassment?

Thor, at the very least, had the grace to pull him aside then, in order to make his confession a private affair, given the circumstances. "I ... I cannot compete at the Games today," he'd finally declared. His eyes shifted guiltily; he had always been as poor a liar as Loki had excelled at half-truths and hyperbole. Sensing more explanation was warranted, he'd added: "Father is, he wants me to join him on the battlefield for an expedition on this day. He said it's to be a very formative experience towards my development as the future King. I have pleaded with him to hold off for but a single solar rotation, but he insists. I'm ... so sorry, brother."

Loki, for perhaps the first time in his life, had been struck utterly speechless. "This doesn't make sense," he'd said, and Thor had nodded miserably in agreement, albeit with an air of finality that showed he had already acquiesced to his fate. Several emotions had coursed hotly through Loki's veins simultaneously at that point: Rage, confusion, disappointment. Most of it, he aimed squarely at Odin, but unfortunately, Thor was and always had been an all too easy substitution, a safe target at which to release his fury. "Of course, it matters not to you, Future King of Asgard," he had spat bitterly in his brother's face. "Such a trifling ceremony has no bearing on your claim to the throne one way or the other; I don't blame you for deciding to skip it altogether. It's beneath you, after all, a piddling procedure that affects you not." 

A stray thought had come to him then, and he had latched onto it with hurt, barbed with spite. "Perhaps there's a more sinister reason for pulling you before your trial comes to pass," he had added meanly. "Perhaps the Allfather is worried you are too dim to succeed on this day. After all, the One True Odinson cannot very well rule Asgard from below." He spoke, of course, of the preliminary rule of the Games, one that they and their peers alike had spent years memorizing and reciting in anticipation of this day, that, were someone to fail their trial, they would forfeit the rest of their near-immortal existance and serve the goddess Hela in Valhalla for the rest of eternity. It had always seemed an unnecessarily harsh consequence to Loki, but then, Asgard could not afford to produce weak warriors, after all.

To his credit, Thor had taken Loki's browbeating in but stoic silence, the product of years of being his younger brother's emotional punching bag, perhaps, or worse, of believing in his own heart everything Loki had to lob at him. "Perhaps," he had whispered again, and had apologized once more before loping away, looking for all the world like a wounded animal. Squaring his shoulders, Loki had managed to briefly explain the situation to Sif without crying; Sif did not return the favor, however, and a long and drawn-out screaming match between herself and Thor in the middle of the courtyard had then ensued. 

When all was said and done, Thor had gone his separate way, while Loki and Sif were joined by Amora in order to fill out the trio required to enter the gaming chamber. They had succeeded, but the victory had felt hollow; and yet, Loki had latched onto the clever wordplay of the riddle he had correctly identified as describing failure, had surrounded himself with the meaning of the words, allowing them to cloak him. Intelligence had always been his defense mechanism, one that successfully (most of the time) hid away the myriad insecurities that plagued him, all of which were threatening to push themselves forward onto display now. He does not allow himself to express them until he is, at last, alone in his tall tower rooms, and even then, glaring at open books he has no ability to coherently process at the moment and the like is all that he can muster around the numbness that threatens to be even more painful than his actual feelings.

Thor is not here. Thor is with Odin, who had offered absolutely no acknowledgment of his other son's own triumph before leading his eldest into what was assuredly not the crucial battlefield campaign he had made it out to be. The pair will be gone several weeks' time, enough for Loki to perfect the pretense that, in fact, his brother's absence on this day did not utterly break his heart, nor had their father's actions driven a wedge between the two brothers that would lodge itself painfully between them for centuries on. On this night, however, Loki allows himself to sit, and brood, and rage, and perhaps cry a little yet under cover of darkness, lying in bed, ignoring the tracks his hot tears make down his cheeks for several minutes, even as celebratory feasts and merrymaking continue outside below. He cries for the piece of his soul that has been forcibly removed without his consent on this day, and the fate that would cruelly keep him from his brother's side, and cries some more, and then sighs, and finally falls into an unfit sleep that leaves him exhausted the following day. 

("We will celebrate through the night and all of the next day following, and then take our well-deserved rest!"

"All right," Loki had agreed, smiling in spite of himself, trusting Thor with his cautious happiness, before everything he knew turned out to be a lie.)

 

_Call us to a higher place, then sends us to the ground._

Much of the fanfare of the Games is preset, based on ancient rituals of their people that will likely continue in the same fashion for as long as Asgard stands. Many of said rituals are magically oriented, and though Loki does not have the power to change that, even with the Space Stone in his possession, the current and long-standing First Place record-holder in Energy Manipulation can, at least, do what he does best, and channel said magics to do his bidding. It is how he had triggered the Learning Hall's long-established trans-dimensional mail system to contact Thor on Midgard in the first place, even without being able to physically send an invitation, either due to being in Valhalla proper or stuck in his cell on Asgard, as would be required in order to utilize a messenger raven in either realm. It is also how the trophy and certificate get sent to Thor, commemorating his latent, yet still impressive feats of late. 

A part of him scoffs at the mental image of Thor proudly brandishing said acquisitions, evidence that, in fact, Odin had little to fear in allowing him to prove his mettle alongside his peers, to show perhaps that Asgard's future King was indeed worthy of the throne in as many ways as it was possible to substantiate. And yet, a surprisingly large, even larger, part of Loki cannot help but find the notion of Thor excitedly displaying the tokens of his educational achievements for all to see endearing. It is not something he would admit to, though he has an irritating feeling that his brother would be smart enough to read between the lines, so to speak, and arrive at a similar conclusion.

"Enjoy your victory, brother," he murmurs when the appropriate spells and incantations have been settled, and he must need his ears examined by Asgard's healers, because it doesn't sound nearly as caustic as he thinks it should.


End file.
